This past weekend, presidential candidate John Kerry appeared at a small pro-abortion rally in Washington D.C. ironically named the "March for Women's Lives" and sponsored by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights and Reproductive Action League ("NARAL Pro-Choice America"). Perhaps the name of the march is an attempt to appeal to the antiquated notion that legalized abortion prevents women's deaths, despite the fact that far more women die from abortion procedures now than before its legalization. This title is also especially ironic when at least half of all aborted children are female and when forced abortions are used in countries around the world to sex-select against the birth of female babies. Regardless, Kerry has thrown his full support behind the abortion march and its mission, all the while claiming to be a faithful Roman Catholic who publicly supports a woman's "right to choose." Incidentally, numerous bishops and the Vatican have called upon priests to not allow Holy Communion to be given to politicians who publicly support abortion.Kerry's abysmal stance on abortion takes him beyond being merely a laissez-faire, "pro-choice" leader who promises to honor the so-called autonomous choices of women to kill their unborn children. The man is extreme even among those who are pro-choice. Kerry unequivocally supports the pro-death policies of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and other international population control organizations that force abortions for financial gain or eugenic policy reasons, thus pitting himself directly against the Church and against women. For example, Kerry has spoken out in praise of China's one-child policy. In China, to this very day, a woman without a permit to give birth to a second child can be dragged out of her home in the middle of the night in order to have an abortion forced upon her - the woman's "choice" as to whether or not to keep the baby is irrelevant. In his goals and actions as a leader, Kerry does not even abide by the deceptive euphemism of "pro-choice."Furthermore, at a recent dinner hosted by NARAL, co-sponsor of the pro-abortion march, Kerry received an ovation for his comment that there should be, "no more cutbacks on population control efforts around the world." The World Health Organization has estimated that over 50 million women are "missing" in China due to China's mandatory one-child policy which encourages families to abort every female child that comes along in order to secure a male. Champion for the rights of women? Hardly.Kerry wants to increase the amount of government funding of Planned Parenthood, an organization which funds abortions both in America and overseas. Planned Parenthood has recently begun a new radio ad campaign targeting poor African-American neighborhoods with rap lyrics advising those with unplanned pregnancy to come on down to PP. Is this an effort to help the African-American community or to exploit their poverty and to impose eugenic "population-control" measures as an alterative to a genuine solution to poverty in the United States? No other segment of the population has been as adversely affected by abortion - thanks largely to Planned Parenthood's aggressive efforts, nearly half of all pregnancies of African-American women end in abortion.Planned Parenthood has been and currently is engaging in a systematic effort to undermine religiosity and Catholicism in Hispanic communities and aggressively there propagates its birth control and abortion message. It has called upon numerous traditionally-Catholic nations to imitate China's brutal one-child policy. It has endorsed the efforts of the "Women on Waves Foundation," an abortion clinic boat that sails to various Catholic and/or third world countries in order to take women to international waters and kill their babies. The Dutch ship's first stop? Ireland.Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, unabashedly advocated eugenics. In her writings in "Pivot of Civilization," she contends, "Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of the natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives." While America does not have forced abortions like China, how many women here are "forced" in some way, through manipulation or circumstances, to abort their child? Does not the abortion and contraceptive agenda of PP undermine the commitment to women of males who feel justified in pointing their girlfriends to the abortuary? How many women are forced into choosing abortion because society believes that rather than supporting women who need emotional, financial, academic and/or social support, all she needs is the scarring experience of an abortion? Is this the "liberation" women deserve? No man has ever had to carry the traumatic experience of an abortion with him through the years? Is this equality?If John Kerry should become president, he would increase funding to Planned Parenthood and their agenda of death and preventing life wherever possible. What we need, rather, is to empower women who want to keep their children by devoting our resources to providing the emotional, economic and social support they need to see their pregnancies through and to take care of their children and themselves once they are born.
Brian Noonanlaw studentApril 25
